JENKINS: Firepower at fairgrounds may be in the cross hairs

Will 2013 be the year when the Del Mar Fairgrounds finally bans gun shows?

The hard business head says: Nope, never.

The bleeding liberal heart says: Hmmm, maybe.

Let’s start by ticking off the arguments in favor of firearms remaining for sale where the surf meets the Glocks.

• After scores of shows over decades, the record is defensible: Del Mar’s gun shows are, by and large, law-abiding bazaars with an upbeat vibe. Of course, the record isn’t spotless. In the ’90s, a trio of suspected gunrunners tied to mass murders in Baja allegedly met at the fairgrounds. More than 800 pounds of gunpowder were seized in 1998. On one occasion, a dealer brought in an illegal assault rifle and was cited.

• Loosely regulated gun shows in other states are in bad odor after the Newtown massacre. But the Del Mar shows — for the past 21 years they’ve been managed by Crossroads of the West — enforce the same regulations as regular California gun shops. No gun-show “loophole” here.

Bottom line: The stereotype of lawless sales to crazies and criminals won’t hunt in Del Mar.

• Gun shows have a legal right to sell wares on state-owned property. Buttressing that right to free commerce is the fact that gun shows educate the public about gun safety and laws. In that sense, shows are assemblies with protected rights of free speech.

Bottom line: So what if liberal pinot grigio-sippers have a problem with guns? A lot of people don’t like cats, but that doesn’t mean you boot the puss fanciers.

• Money’s money. The gun shows are a regular crash crop for the 22nd District Agricultural Association. Five times a year, they bear green fruit in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Bottom line: The bottom line.

So that’s the basic case for the shows to go on and on. Now let’s give the other side its best shots.

In 1992, former Del Mar Mayor Dick Roe was running for Congress and actively campaigning against the gun shows. As a Green candidate (who would lose big to Randall Harold Cunningham), Roe stressed the hypocrisy of buying back guns with tax dollars while allowing gun exchanges to operate on state property. (Roe, who spearheaded a Del Mar smoking ban way back in 1987, had a knack for being ahead of the curve.)

In the wake of the 1999 Columbine massacre, the San Diego Union-Tribune pronounced itself “troubled” by the shows. “We urge the Legislature to consider a statewide ban on the sale of firearms on state-controlled property,” an editorial concluded.

A year later, Del Mar activist Bud Emerson stepped up to urge the fairground board to turn its back on gun shows. At that time, about 20 counties and cities around the state were trying to win divorces from the gun trade, separations ultimately upheld by the state Supreme Court.

As Emerson said during this period, gun shows can be viewed in the same lurid light as porn.

Citizens have as much right to like, collect and privately trade in legal erotica as they have to like, collect and trade in legal guns.

Some of us may not admire the hobbies — we might find them creepy — but, hey, that’s life in a democracy that prizes personal freedom.

It’s unlikely, however, that the fairgrounds would rent space to an adult expo five times a year. Imagine the outcry as “marital aids” right out of “Fifty Shades of Gray” are hawked from booths. For added spice, throw in stars of the sex trade lecturing about the First Amendment right to bare arms — and everything else.

Guns and porn.

Apples and oranges, you say? Not really.

Both industries are supported by bedrock constitutional amendments, but the rights are by no means absolute. Courts can, and do, impose reasonable limits.

Arguably, this might be a safer, healthier, better world if neither guns nor porn existed in such obscene profusion, but let’s face it: The real world is a long march from the Garden of Eden.

But that doesn’t mean the collective we, as represented by government, need to be de facto partners with gun and porn purveyors, does it?

After a tumultuous year in which the fairgrounds were nearly sold to the city of Del Mar, the board president recently reached out to the county Board of Supervisors. The goal, which Gov. Brown supports, is to grant significant regional control over the conduct of the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

Signs are it’s going to be a landmark year for the fairgrounds. Meanwhile, the first of five Crossroads of the West Del Mar shows is in March.

Mark your calendars — and these words.

The more local the control of the fairgrounds, the greater the likelihood that Del Mar’s gun shows once again will be targets.